Will Brexit Trigger a "Domino Effect" Among Other EU Member States?

Within hours after Brexit became the new reality for the EU and UK alike, Euroskeptics in other EU countries announced their intention to follow Britain’s lead. From the Netherlands to Scandinavia, European countries whose citizens have tired of the EU’s yoke are considering voting with their feet. Now that the façade of EU permanence has been punctured, there is a very real prospect that the decades-old European experiment in consensual empire-building may meet a swift and disorderly end.

The European Union, which was promoted for years as a free trade zone, has long since been unmasked as an attempt to replace the sovereign nations of Europe with a sort of regional government. Most Europeans favored borders more transparent to trade and travel, and generally favored the early Common Market and its successor, the European Community — even as sober observers warned that the architects of Europe’s economic unity actually had more grandiose aims in mind, aims that envisaged a sort of United States of Europe with a single economy, central bank, parliament, military, and set of laws.

A key element in the “Eurocrats’” scheme was to rid European countries of their national currencies and replace them with the euro, a new international currency to be produced by a European central bank. Britain, though a member of the EU, declined to be a member of the new “Eurozone,” and kept its national currency of centuries, the pound. That choice proved prudent, since it will make Britain’s upcoming exit from the EU a much less messy affair than would have been the case had they needed to jettison the euro and reconstitute the pound from scratch. But despite keeping the EU’s currency regime at arm’s length, British citizens soon tired of the endless onslaught of new regulations promulgated by Brussels bureaucrats, of the surge in new immigrants, of the constant efforts by European authorities to whittle away at British sovereignty, and of the cost of trying to keep the EU afloat as country after country descended into crisis in the aftermath of the global economic slump of 2007-2008.

Factors such as these propelled the British electorate to Thursday's dramatic ballot-box repudiation of the European Union. And if things seemed bad to the Brits, they have been much worse for the countries held captive by the EU’s one-currency regime. The euro, in circulation for more than 14 years, has replaced such storied sovereign currencies as the Spanish peseta, the French franc, and the Italian lira. Since the demise of those currencies, countries in the Eurozone have been completely dependent on the whim of authorities at the European Central Bank (ECB). With the global economic crisis came a string of national insolvencies, with Greece being perhaps the most intractable — and coercive measures on the part of ECB authorities that effectively stripped insolvent countries of their economic and financial sovereignty.

Nor are European elites coy anymore about their long-term goals. The planned creation of a single European tax authority, police force, military, and code of law are among their open objectives, along with the overall goal of federating Europe into a single superstate that can then more easily be merged into a single global government.

What’s a hard pressed Dutchman, Dane, or Swede to do? According to Dutch politician Geert Wilders, leader of Holland’s PVV Party, follow the British example. “I congratulate the British people for beating the political elite in both London and Brussels and I think we can do the same," Wilders told Reuters. "We should have a referendum about a 'Nexit' [Netherlands Exit] as soon as possible. There is no future any more [for the EU].”

In France, a country weary of uncontrolled immigration, and the terrorism it has brought, Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front Party and current front-runner in the polls leading up to next year’s presidential election, expressed similar sentiments. Displaying a picture of the British flag on her Twitter page, Le Pen proclaimed the Brexit a “victory for freedom” and called for a “Frexit” as soon as possible.

Further south, in hard-pressed Italy, the “5 Star Movement” called for a referendum on EU membership in the wake of a debilitating economic crisis, driven by high levels of public debt, that Italy has yet to extricate itself from. The numbers in a poll on EU membership conducted by IPSOS in May are sobering to Europhiles: 58 percent of Italians want a referendum on continued EU membership, and 55 percent of French want the same for their country.

In Scandinavia, both Denmark and Sweden are mulling similar referenda. Denmark, it will be recalled, held two referenda on EU membership. The first was roundly rejected by the Danes, whereupon European authorities and their allies in Copenhagen embarked on a year-long propaganda blitz, coupled with cosmetic tweaks to the Maastricht Treaty. A second referendum was held, and this time, European elites got the result that they wanted. Danish resentment of the EU has never been far from the surface, however, and “Dexit” may be an idea whose time has come.

Sweden, meanwhile, wisely chose to retain its national currency, like the British, and thus has the easiest path to opting out of the EU. Sweden has recently been afflicted by a severe violent crime wave, a direct consequence of massive immigration from the Middle East and elsewhere.

It is no accident that most of the popular ferment in the EU is coming from wealthy western European countries; these are the states who have had to shoulder the burden of bailing out the likes of Greece, Portugal, and Spain, and propping up the economies of poorer eastern European states who have entered the EU more recently.

Besides the possible rush for the exits within the EU, another interesting prospect has been raised by Brexit: the end of the three-centuries-old United Kingdom. Voters in England and Wales voted to leave the EU, but both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted overwhelmingly to stay. This has already raised the possibility of a second Scottish referendum on independence, with the express aim of keeping Scotland in the EU. Such an outcome, of course, would ensure that union with the UK would be replaced by permanent membership in the EU, but a majority of Scots — once the most ruggedly independent people in Europe — appear to favor such an outcome.

More than anything else, Brexit is the first significant blow struck against the internationalists and their goal of a one-world government in many years. Since the foundation of the United Nations and the Bretton Woods global financial and trade organizations since the end of the Second World War, the globalists have seen slow but steady progress in their program. The UN has gradually become stronger and stronger, and kindred instruments of regional and global government, like NAFTA, the WTO, and of course, the EU, have come into being. No nation has withdrawn from the UN or from any regional government bloc — until now. Intentionally or not, Brexit was a body blow to the New World Order, and ought to be applauded by all Americans interested in preserving and revitalizing our own sovereignty.

Here’s hoping the spirit of Brexit spreads far and wide in Europe, and on our side of the Atlantic as well.

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